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- [00:00]
A
Donald Trump's frustration with Pete Hecseth and the United States Pentagon is boiling over. It's boiling over. Over the fact that he believes he was misled by Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon, over the fact that the United States of America is suffering severe munitions shortages. Over the past several days we've learned from Reuters and elsewhere that the United States has used nearly all of its long range missiles in the war in Iran. But that's not all. It's also running low on interceptors. The ability to protect allies in the region has significantly been degraded, and munitions shortages are at the top of the list of issues for the President. And so he reamed into Pete Hegseth privately at Camp David, he publicly attacks those who are, quote, leaking this information, seemingly admitting the truth about the current conditions of his Pentagon. And it all comes as right now, the United States military is facing crisis abroad. Service members are getting moldy showers, lack of toothpaste, lack of soap, food rations. It's bad. It is bad overseas. And I have the latest right now. Make sure to hit that subscribe button if you can to support this work as we're on the road to a million subscribers. Like Comment Share get the word out Right now there is censorship everywhere and TikTok has literally nuked a lot of my posts for community guidelines violations. And you can see it below. We won't stop. Not now, not ever. While the President is not happy, he is not happy. He lashed out at a 12:34am Truth social post. Here's the post saying that the United States has massive amounts of munitions, especially of certain types. His rant about, quote, treasonous leakers after the Washington Post reported that he was berating Defense Secretary Pete Hexseth at Camp David over concerns that the Iran war has seriously depleted US Arms stockpile. Press secretary Caroline Levitt had initially dismissed the story as 100% fake news. But Trump's own furious response, this response insisting that the United States has massive amounts of munitions, especially of certain types, effectively confirmed that the clash happened. He also claimed weapons were being shipped in as needed and that defense companies were building record numbers of plants v vowing to hunt down the leakers and pursue long term jail sentences against them. According to the Washington Post, Hecseth reportedly shifted blame for the shortages and communication failures onto his deputy Steven Feinberg, who received an angry call from Trump last Friday evening and then convened a, quote, crisis meeting with top Pentagon officials that same night. Trump reportedly told Feinberg the shortages were affecting his decisions on whether to expand military operations. Now Pete Hegseth on his own try to claim that the shortages are not true. But this is one of the, just one of many in a string of embarrassing leaks to plague the Trump administration. And it comes as service members abroad are facing crisis as well. Moldy showers, food shortages, sailors running out of toothpaste, deodorant and soap. Families of the sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln are sounding the alarm that their loved ones are so exhausted that they fear it could lead to a deadly mistake. As the carrier enters its nine month at sea and its fifth consecutive month of combat operations against Iran, the families told Ms. Now there is no indication of when their loved ones are going to return home as the routine seven month deployment for the 5,000 plus crew members appeared to have been extended for a second time. So crisis abroad, crisis at home. And I spoke with Jean Shaheen, the top foreign policy senator about all this, where billions of dollars from Venezuela are going and more. You're not going to want to miss it. Hit that subscribe button, get the word out. And here's my conversation with the senator. Senator Shaheen, great to be with you today. I want to jump right in and talk about where things stand with the war in Iran. There have been talks that we're moving closer to another deal or memorandum of understanding regarding the Strait of Hormuz. What do you know?
- [04:01]
B
Right now I don't know anything beyond what's been reported on the news this morning. It sounds like they are close to an agreement on reopening the strait, but we haven't seen any of the details for that. And one of the things I'm very concerned about is a suggestion that perhaps it comes with fees attached to go through the straight, which should be a non starter for the United States. We should never agree to that.
- [04:31]
A
Well, remind me, back when the war began, February 27th, the day before, were there fees attached to tankers heading through the strait?
- [04:38]
B
There were not. And we've heard from Secretary Rubio who has pointed out that doing this in the Strait of Hormuz would be a very bad example for maritime travel worldwide, that right now maritime commerce is supposed to travel freely on the seas around the world. And to set this kind of precedent would be very dangerous because where would it end? Are we then going to charge people to go through the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, the strait in the Red Sea? I mean, it raises all kinds of questions, not to mention the additional cost. Americans are already paying significant costs because of the high prices of energy and gasoline. Now because of the closure of the strait, and to add that on top of it permanently is just unacceptable. We should never agree to that.
- [05:32]
A
Now, you mentioned that you don't know much other than public reporting. And that brings me to an important point. How often is this administration, specifically Secretary Rubio or Secretary Hexseth, communicating with you all on Capitol Hill about the status of the war overseas?
- [05:47]
B
Well, it's been very troubling how little transparency exists with this administration. They rarely brief Congress. Secretary Hegseth was on the Hill yesterday, but he was only meeting with Republicans. And the reports that I got from that meeting were that he wasn't sharing much information with the Republicans either in the Senate. So it is a huge problem. And in the end, it's one that does not benefit administration because they need Congress. They need Congress for funding. They need Congress to weigh in in so many ways on what's happening in the Department of War, on what's happening in the Department of State. And they. They shouldn't assume that they only need one party in order to do that, because the votes are not there just among the majority party. And then there's the lack of transparency with the American public. If you look at how the public views the war in Iran, it is even more unpopular than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were to start. The American people don't believe President Trump should have started this war. They don't support it. He hasn't accomplished any of the goals that he set out in the beginning, and it's gone on much longer than he told the American people it would. And he's broken the promise that he made when he was running that he would stop forever wars. And what he's done is gotten us in Venezuela, now in Iran. He's talking about Cuba. So this needs to end. He needs to get back to the negotiating table, and he needs to come up with a plan and a strategy for how to address ending this war in Iran.
- [07:40]
A
Do you believe that the administration is being forthcoming about the number of casualties that we've experienced in this war?
- [07:51]
B
Well, what we have seen is that they have changed the casualty numbers, not for those killed, but for those who have been wounded. Those numbers have changed, and they have not been forthcoming about that or about the conditions that so many of our men and women in the military are facing now in the Middle East. What we know is that we've had some of the longest deployments ever among our Navy who are on ships in the Mediterranean because of this war. We know that there have been real hardships for the men and women on board those ships in terms of availability of food, of access to things as mundane as dis deodorant and toothpaste. And so the administration and the Department, Secretary Hegseth, have not been forthcoming at all with the American people about the impact of what's happening in the war in Iran.
- [08:54]
A
You mentioned Venezuela earlier. Financial Times report came out recently suggesting that we don't really know where these billions of dollars that we're earning from oil sales in Venezuela. Do you have any knowledge as to where this money is going?
- [09:10]
B
We don't. And sadly, we have made multiple requests from Secretary Rubio in public hearings that they are required by law to transmit the document that they have supposedly signed with the Rodriguez government on those oil proceeds. They have a requirement to send that document to the Foreign Relations Committee. It has not been forthcoming despite multiple requests for that. So we don't know where that money's going. And what we do know is that the longer it goes on before there is some accounting from Delsey Rodriguez and her administration, the less inclined they are to move towards free and fair elections, the more disappointed and disillusioned the Venezuelan people are. They welcomed the removal of Nicolas Maduro when it happened, but they have become very frustrated. And because they've dealt with the earthquakes there, they have had real hardship, even worse than before Maduro was removed. And what they have gotten from the United States is broken promises and we need to do better.
- [10:33]
A
Well, you mentioned the Rodriguez government. It wasn't. It was kind of installed. Delcio Rodriguez was installed as the president. In a lot of ways, she is just Maduro's kind of underboss in a way. Right. He was Maduro's number two. Do you believe that the Rodriguez government is a legitimate government?
- [10:52]
B
Absolutely not. And the Venezuelan people don't believe it either. And what they need to see from the United States is a commitment to ensure that there are free and fair elections in Venezuela, that there is a time certain set in the future so that they know they have that to look forward to so that we can restore hope that life is going to get better for the people of Venezuela, because it certainly hasn't since Nicolas Maduro has been removed. And what we've seen is that there was an initial round of release of political prisoners, but that's ended. They still have political prisoners there. They're still refusing to allow Maria Corina Machado to come back into the country. So there are a lot of reasons why average Venezuelans are very disillusioned right now.
- [11:51]
A
Senator, I want to touch base on the Russia sanctions bill. What's the status of the bill today?
- [11:57]
B
Well, we're working hard to try and get a vote on the Senate floor. We've had two overwhelming votes, 86, I think, 86 to 12 in both cases to move the bill forward. Now we're hoping to get a bill on final passage of or a vote on final passage of the bill before we go out on recess. We're working through ideas for amendments that some people have. We have real concerns that any amendments that get added to the bill will sink it in the Senate. So we're trying to work through some of those issues and hoping to get that vote and pass it overwhelmingly before we go out for August recess. And the reason we think this is so important is because the momentum is really on Ukraine's side right now. The Russians are losing over 30,000 casualties a month, if you can imagine that. Ukraine has struck deep into Russian territory, affecting their oil and gas infrastructure with their drones. The Russian economy is flailing. And so anything that we can do to help get Vladimir Putin to the table, now is the time to do it. We need to enforce that momentum that is on Ukraine's side and help get an end to this war.
- [13:21]
A
Senator, thank you so much for the time this afternoon.
- [13:23]
B
Thank you.